


Take What the Follower Has Given

by Sonofthebattle



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cuddling & Snuggling, Domestic, Established Relationship, M/M, Star Trek: Into Darkness, Star Trek: Into Darkness Spoilers, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-24
Updated: 2013-09-24
Packaged: 2017-12-27 12:36:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/978953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sonofthebattle/pseuds/Sonofthebattle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Canon AU - Star Trek Into Darkness</p>
<p>--</p>
<p>Chris Pike survived the attack on Starfleet Headquarters, but the recovery will not be easy. Jonathan Archer is just happy to have him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take What the Follower Has Given

Jonathan Archer is a lot of things.

He is one of the most respected officers at Starfleet, a decorated Admiral and highly praised superior. He is a long-time friend of both Philip Boyce and Richard Barnett, and prides himself on his ability to still strike fear into the hearts of first-year cadets with merely a glance. He enjoys popping into seminars just to stir the pot with instructors who he thinks still need to be kept on their toes, and dotes on his kennel full of beagles more than most people care to comment on. He is endlessly patient and assumed by one James T. Kirk, the golden-haired poster boy for Starfleet and underestimated offspring of his late academy classmate, George Kirk. He’s not afraid to be called out on his love for an old-fashioned guitar.

He is not, however, patient about being kept from Christopher Pike.

(Chris would argue the point, say that ten years they spent apart while Archer was scouting the edges of the galaxy that he’d all but forgotten about the bratty cadet he’d befriended at the Academy. Jon will grin and say that at least be came back for him in the end.)

The San Francisco sky bleaks a bleary gray against the looming storm clouds in the distance, and Jon quickens his pace to get to the apartment before the storm breaks. He pulls his keys from his pocket before he even reaches the right block, anxious to get home and make sure that Chris is, _god,_ still alive.

He thumbs the door open as the first drops of rain hit his face, and gratefully retreats inside. The temperature inside is warm, elevated above Jon’s normal comfort because Chris chills so easily these days, particularly with the weather of late. It’s important his body temperature doesn’t drop too much, his immune system is shot to hell and back and Jon knows he’s extremely susceptible to any illness.

Jon removes his boots and jacket, handing the lather next to Chris’ leather one on the hook next to the door. The lights in the living area are on; a crumpled blanket on the sofa and the throw pillows are mushed. The TV is still on, relaying the continuing construction and cleanup efforts downtown, and Jon locates the remote from its place on the coffee table and flicks it off as an afterthought. There’s a half eaten plate of pasta sitting at the kitchen table next to a nearly full glass of water.

The sight is harmless enough, but it makes Jon stiffen. Two weeks ago there would have been an empty beer bottle in its place, and the news reporter talking about some public awareness event going on over the weekend. The hole that the _Vengeance_ tore out of downtown San Francisco is painfully obvious every time he takes the shuttle, and he won’t see it displayed on his TV at home.

He scraps what’s left of the pasta back into a container and tosses it back into the fridge, (they can always just replicate more, but why be wasteful when so much has already been lost?) and heads to the bedroom to find exactly what he’s looking for.

The room is dark, softly illuminated by the holo- lamp on the bedside corner. Christopher Pike deeply asleep, stretched out on his left side clad in a pair of ratty grey sweatpants, a hand pillowed under one arm and a PADD hanging from his right hand. His chest is technically bare of any actual clothing, but it’s swaddled in thick, heavy bandaged from corner to corner.

Archer lets out a held-in breath at the sight of Chris’ chest rising and falling with each breath. It’s a sight he’d never considered all that beautiful a month ago.

A month ago he’d been called from this very apartment by an urgent message on his comm.

A month ago Chris was barely hanging onto life after an attack on Starfleet Headquarters.

_The chest hound had been what many would have called fatal, had he not been evacuated the second he was hit. It was something of a miracle, the impact from the weapon that had nearly ended Chris life had enough force to propel him safely from the line of fire into the hallway, where backup and emergency personal had been flooding the passageway. The quick thinking of a young medical student in the hallway, and later, the hours of intensive surgery by Philip Boyce, had given Chris another shot at life._

_Jon had spent the hours after the attack corresponding between Starfleet officials, the desperate press, and a distraught Jim Kirk, who only left when Leonard McCoy had arrived to drag him away. It had been the worst remembered hours of Jon’s life, reading all the crisis information being forwarded to his PADD, (this was a terrorist attack, this was war,) while snapping his neck up every time a doctor walked through the doors, desperate to hear that Chris was alive._

He pulled his work clothes off and tossed them haphazardly on the floor, (God that was going to piss Chris off when he saw it,) and pulled on a pair of thread-bare sleep pants before climbing in the bed behind Chris and pulling the covers around them both. Chris’ blue eyes blinked to life at the feel of Jon’s hands against his forehead as he swept through the pepper-grey curls, and he turned gingerly around to face him.

 Jon’s smile softened at Chris’ sleep muddled eyes, the wayward curls falling back into his face. He brought a hand up to the heavy bandaging on his chest and stopped before he could make contact with the padding, choosing to grip Chris’ bare shoulder instead.

“Didn’t think you’d decide to turn into bed without me,” he says, tracing light circles all the way down Chris’ arm.

“Feel a’leep on the couch,” Chris replies, eyes dripping shut again in his obvious exhaustion. “Gotta dr’aft comin’ in th’rough the livin’ room…couldn’t get warm enough,” he mumbles.

Chris’ skin was chilled to the touch, and Jon pulled him closer in the circle of his arms. He tucks Chris’ head under his chin, and the other man’s arms come around him in response. He wants to call for the tricorder to check Chris’ temperature, he’s freezing but there’s a light glaze in his eyes that suggest fever. He placates himself with the knowledge that body warmth is the best heat conductor there is, and Boyce should be by in a few hours to check in. No doubt Jim Kirk will be along at some point as well, if he hasn’t already, and will inevitably have Leonard McCoy in his wake.

The feel of the bandages against bare skin is a staunch reminder of how lucky he is to have Chris here at home, let alone alive, and it their shared bed. It’s enough to hitch his breath in his throat and pull Chris that much closer, molding their bodies together and bringing a hand back to cup his partner’s head. Chris just burrows closer to Jon’s warmth, humming in the back of his throat mindlessly in sleep and Jon chokes back a sob he didn’t realize was rising in his throat as the feel of Chris’ body, solid, real and alive in his arms. It’s a million things he thought he’d never get again when he was sitting in a hospital waiting room for five hours.

There’s a wheelchair just off to his side of the bed, a solid reminder of how injured Chris still is, and the cane he prefers in hanging idly in some corner of the closest. But it’s also proof that Chris is still here, for Jon to harass and be harassed in turn, to pander to and take to 49ers football games. He’s still here, with his hard lines that go soft when it’s just the two of them, the hair that curls when it gets too long, (Jon loves it and Chris hates it,) and that stupid grey hoodie, that Chris loves and Jon hates, hanging over the back of the loveseat.

He knows he should get up, read through the new transfers on his PADD, comm Boyce and ask about fever symptoms, call Jim and update him, wash the dishes or just do the laundry. But Chris is relaxed in sleep, his face slack in exhaustion, and maybe he can be spared, just this once of the nightmares. His body is warming up next to Jon and his bandages are clean, no lines of pain mar his face, and for the moment Jon is at peace.

In an hour he will wake up and face the frightening reality of what could have happened, and the daunting future that still lies ahead of them both. But for now, Jon Archer relines his head against a soft pillow and tightens his hold on the man he waited more than a decade to return for. He’s gotten this far, and come hell or highwater, he’s going to keep Chris with him as long as he can.


End file.
